The Bog Paper - fit to wipe with?

In 1989, the UK arm of Marvel made a couple of efforts to "get in on" the humour comic racket. One of these attempts, It's Wicked!, took the Monster Fun approach of having all its characters embody "spooky" characteristics, and whilst mostly dull, it had its moments. The OTHER comic launched in 1989 (and not even lasting as long as It's Wicked!, which didn't make it to its 20th issue) went for a theme that everyone can relate to:

Yep, it's The Bog Paper, the comic of toilets, shitting, pissing and farting. Is it as bad as it sounds? Squat down and find out!

For such a scatty subject, Marvel got a fair few "respected" comics-folk involved - some might say anything for a bit of cash, some might say it's a good excuse to draw stuff that their usual employers would never let them do. 

John Geering (of Bananaman fame) does a fair few of the strips in here, as well as the cover. The comic's "mascot" of sorts is a sewer-travelling superhero called Flush Gordon, and the first issue starts with his origin story:

Maybe you find that kind of stuff funny, maybe you don't. The kid's reaction to Flush's appearance is funny enough in itself - one of Geering's other creations, Smudge, would feel right at home in this comic! Anyway, Flush Gordon travels around the sewers of the world, popping out of toilets wherever help is needed. Of the four issues I've read, his trip to Australia's my favourite:

Rude Goollitt is an obvious play on Ruud Gullit, here with the "rude" part of his name played up to make him a stinking, filthy, ill-mannered sod with no respect for anyone.

So not much different to most footballing folk then (ha ha ha etc).

Next up is Doctor Phoo (not to be confused with Doctor Poo of Viz fame). His Tardis is an outhouse and his K-9 is a toilet on wheels called WC1. In this particular adventure, fed up of the moanings of his wife and neighbor, the Doctor goes looking for friendly faces and makes a "hilarious" faux-pas:

Gordon Bell (creator of Pup Parade and Spoofer McGraw amongst other things) is here too, with three different strips. The Gents are the bathroom-based adventures of two toilet-door signs:

Then there's the truly disgusting Dampers, a baby using his natural scatological abilities for mischievous purposes:

And finally Super 'Lu, a confusing mess of a story - is this really the obvious solution to eating hot chilli powder?

Barrie Applyby's here too, and what's more he's brought over his own Winnie Witch Doctor from It's Wicked!:

This one doesn't follow the same "themes" as the other stories, so on a speculative level, it's POSSIBLE that Barrie had done more Winnie strips than there were issues of It's Wicked! to fit them in. Just a thought. Likewise, the other character of Barrie's in The Bog Paper doesn't seem to fit in with the others - this is Anty:

By the 11th issue, however, Anty seemed to be more "in keeping" the rest of the grotty folk:

Other characters of The Bog Paper include King John:

Chicken Vindaloo, about a chicken (looking not unlike Marvo the Wonder Chicken) and his continuing attempts to escape various chefs (mostly through the breakage of wind):

Spenda Penny, concerning the various misadventures of a young girl's bathroom visits:

The Stynx, who is unlikeable even by Bog Paper standards:

And finally, my favourite of the lot - Royston Roylette (He Always Buys A Toilet), about an apparently VERY wealthy young boy who returns home every day with another toilet - all due to the bizarrely sneaky tactics of Mr. Store Personmanager:

And just to show how much I like this one - here's the rest of them!

So, there we have it. As bad as you thought? Or maybe better than you thought? As with everything else on the planet, it's all subjective, and obviously the execution of it all helps. Scat and "gross-out" humour can be funny if done right (Viz, The Ren & Stimpy Show and Beavis & Butt-Head are proof of this), and it can be either terrible or just plain embarrassing if it's not done right (see Boogerman or Boogaz or this bit from Family Guy). But then again, you might hate Ren and Stimpy's antics but love that Family Guy bit. Subjective, subjective, subjective!